05/10/2007

From the Feuilletons

From the Feuilletons is a weekly overview of what's been happening in the German-language cultural pages and appears every Friday at 3 pm. CET.. Here a key to the German newspapers.

Friday

Die Tageszeitung 05.10.2007

Klaus-Helge Donath learns from Russian satiristViktor Shenderovich
what stability under Vladimir Putin means. "Stability comes in many
forms. A tree is stable. It lives, bits of it die off, others grow in
their place. This is stability through change. But our stability,
however, is the stability of amorgue, where the dead
always lie in the same place with a yellow label tied to their toes.
Nothing happens, everything is lifeless. But everyone knows where the
yellow labels are stored and where the corpses belong. Stability in
Russian means politics is non-existent and the atmosphere of a freezer prevails."

Süddeutsche Zeitung 05.10.2007

Even the intellectuals in France succumbed to the charms of beefy men during the Rugby World Cupwrites Christian Kortmann. Sebastien Chabal, known as "the anaesthetist" for his vicious tackles, is the focus of particular attention. "Raw violence and unbridled manliness are suddenly being seen as a recipe for success. Away with neuroses and humour, forget Freud and Woody Allen! PhilosopherCatherine Kintzler
goes weak at the knees at the thought of this muscle-clad fight for survival. In an interview with French national player Christophe
Dominici in Philosophiemagazine,
she explains her 'philosophy of contact,' calling the tight
pink-coloured tricots a second skin, praising the collective team
spirit and comparing rugby matches with the opera."

Frankfurter Rundschau 05.10.2007

Christian Thomas writes an obituary to the architectOswald Mathias
Ungers who died on September 30. A man, Thomas says, whose career was
marked by an insistence on the affinity between architecture and art
and a vast desire for knowledge. "His library,
the product of five decades of collecting, had a legendary reputation.
In this 'Kubus Haus', which he built in 1989 to house his
treasures,
he brought together the reference works of the western art of building
and architectural theory, in a memory storage room of the most exacting
proportions. Accessible via a patio and peristyle, the master builder erected a
room
calculated for rarities and first editions ... from which to launch his plea for autonomy."

Die Welt 05.10.2007

Wulf Schönbohm, former director of theTurkish office of the Konrad Adenauer Stiftung, argues strongly for Turkish EU membership
and has harsh words for German conservative politicians: "It's becoming
increasingly difficult for CDU and CSU politicians to make a plausible case for keeping Turkey out of the EU. Yet they are sticking to their guns because this is one of the last seemingly conservative
posts, and because they're afraid of their voters. Instead of trying to erode prejudices prejudices, they prefer to develop them.
This is not conservative, it's reactionary. Unfortunately they
fail to see that EU membership of a reformed Turkey would put the West
and Islam on a new footing, and provide the Islamic World with a
progressive, future-oriented perspective, even offering a positive role
model."

Thursday

Frankfurter Rundschau04.10.2007

In a very long interview, Nobel Prize laureateGünter Grassspeaks with Martin Scholz about his upcoming eightieth birthday, the SPD, 1968, his SS avowal (more here) and reactions to his autobiography "Peeling the Onion." Needless to say, the German feuilletons
don't come away unscathed: "In American and English literary criticism,
people aren't above telling the reader what happens in a book. By
contrast, I often get the impression that the German feuilletons write entirely for themselves.
The authors are out to impress their colleagues or focus on their own
expectations of an author. If these are fulfilled, so much the better.
But if not, the reaction is correspondingly vitriolic. Things are
quite different in the Anglo-Saxon world. There critics start at author's intentions and assess the degree to which these have been realised." And his own mistakes? "I will never
have anything to do with the FAZ again, that's for sure."

Der Tagesspiegel 04.10.2007

Marcus Rothe has spoken with Jia Zhangke, the director of "Still Life."
Winner of this year's Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival, the film
came out in Germany this week. Jia criticises not only Chinese society,
but also his fellow filmmaker Zhang Yimou ("Hero"): "Our society is sick. It wants to build up its future by erasing the past.
By contrast, my characters show how things are forgotten. With them, we
experience what a painful process thus isÃ¢â¬Â¦. I think every film Ã¢â¬â
regardless of which genre it belongs to Ã¢â¬â should be bound up with
today's reality. Kung-Fu, horror and other commercial films can all say
something about the time we live in. Zhang Yimou's move towards purely
commercial entertainment films may be understandable because our film
industry still has feet of clay. But it's a great shame that his
works make no attempt whatsoever to reflect society today, and that
he's changed his political convictions so radically." (Here Christina Tilman's review of "Still Life.")

Tuesday
Süddeutsche Zeitung 02.10.2007

Last Sunday, NDR television station broadcast a documentary which provided new evidence about the involvement of the Quandt family,
owners of BMW, in National Socialism. Günther Quandt used slave
labourers in his battery factory in Hanover, as Karl-Heinz Büschemann reports. "It is beyond doubt that towards the end of the World War II, the AFA factory grounds were systematically transformed into an outpost of
Neuengamme concentration camp. Prisoners were forced to do extremely
hazardous work under the eyes of the SS guards. Many died. In an
internal memo, Günther Quandt allowed for a 'fluctuation' in his
factory, indicating that he clearly factored the deaths of many
concentration camp workers into his calculations. Concentration camp
prisoners were also used in the Berlin AFA plantÃ¢â¬Â¦. Today, the Quandts
are one of Germany's wealthiest families."

Monday
Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung 01.10.2007

In the FAZ on Sunday, Nils Minkmar talked to Indian authorAmitav Ghosh whose
book "The Glass Palace" takes place in Burma. He had the
following to say about the current turmoil in the country: "The fact
that it was the monks who lead the protests is a cause for the highest
hopes. We know of course that plenty of foreign money is flowing into
the Burmese opposition, but I would have been concerned if one of these
groups had lead the protests with western financial backing.
But the important thing, the unique thing about these protests in that
they come were initiated by sole institution which can lay claim to
real legitimation and authenticity in Burma today, and that is the Buddhist monasteries."

Saturday

Die Welt 29.09.2007

Matthias Heine was at the Berliner Ensemble for the premiere of Robert
Wilson's "Dreigroschenoper" (Threepenny Opera) and is bubbling with
enthusiasm, particularly about Angela Winkler. "Her Pirate Jenny leaves
the usual rancid romanticism of the Zille whore, which is always
associated with this role, light years behind. Red-haired, tousled, her
face whiter than white, she looks like a character from a Japanese
horror manga, and she whimpers the 'Solomon' song like a crazed angel
copulating with a singing saw (not sure about the technical details of
this), coaxing out of it the highest notes of inhuman lust. This
queen of derangement has long since left the eighth circle of madness
behind her."

Saturday 11 - 17 December, 2010

A clutch of German newspapers launch an appeal against the criminalisation of Wikileaks. Vera Lengsfeld remembers GDR dissident Jürgen Fuchs and how he met death in his cell. All the papers were bowled over Xavier Beauvois' film "Of Gods and Men." The FR enjoys a joke but not a picnic at a staging of Stravinsky's "Rake's Progress" in Berlin. Gustav Seibt provides a lurid description of Napoleonic soap in the SZ. German-Turkish Dogan Akhanli author explains what it feels like to be Josef K. read more

Saturday 4 - Friday 10 December

Colombian writer Hector Abad defends Nobel Prize laureate Mario Vargas Llosa against European Latin-America romantics. Wikileaks dissident Daniel Domscheit-Berg criticises the new publication policy of his former employer. The Sprengel Museum has put on a show of child nudes by die Brücke artists. The SZ takes a walk through the Internet woods with FAZ prophet of doom Frank Schirrmacher. The FAZ is troubled by Christian Thielemann's unstable tempo in the Beethoven cycle. And the FR meets China Free Press publisher, Bao Pu.read more

Saturday 27 November - Friday 3 December

Danish author Frederik Stjernfelt explains how the Left got its culturist ideas. Slavenka Draculic writes about censoring Angelina Jolie who wanted to make a film in Bosnia. Daniel Cohn-Bendit talksÃÂ ÃÂ about his friendship, falling out and reconciliation with Jean-Luc Godard. Wikileaks has caused an embarrassed silence in the Arab world, where not even al-Jazeera reported on the what the sheiks really think. Alan Posener calls for the Hannah Arendt Institute in Dresden to be shut down.read more

Saturday 20 - Friday 26 November, 2010

The theatre event of the week came in a twin pack: Roland Schimmelpfennig's new play, a post-colonial "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf" opened at the Deutsches Theater in Berlin and the Thalia in Hamburg. The anarchist pamphlet "The Coming Insurrection" has at last been translated into German and has ignited the revolutionary sympathies of at least two leading German broadsheets, the FAZ and the SZ. But the taz, Germany's left-wing daily, says the pamphlet is strongly right-wing. What's left and right anyway? came the reply.read more

Saturday 13 - Friday 19 November, 2010

Dieter Schlesak levels grave accusations against his former friend and colleague, Oskar Pastior, who spied on him for the Securitate. Banat-Swabian author and vice chairman of the Oskar Pastior Foundation, Ernest Wichner, turns on Schlesak for spreading malicious rumours. Die Zeit portrays the Berlin rapper Harris, and the moment he knew he was German. Dutch author Cees Nooteboom meditates on the near lust for physical torture in the paintings of Francisco de Zurburan. An exhibition in Mannheim displays the dream house photography of Julius Schulman.read more

Saturday 6 - Friday 12 November, 2010

The NZZ asks why banks invest in art. The FAZ gawps at the unnatural stack of stomach muscles in Michelangelo's drawings. The taz witnesses a giant step for the "Yugo palaver". Bernard-Henri Levy describes Sakineh Ashtiani's impending execution as a test for Iran and the west.Journalist Michael Anti talks about the healthy relationship between the net and the Chinese media. Literary academic Helmut Lethen describes how Ernst Jünger stripped the worker of all organic substances.read more

Saturday 30 October - Friday 5 November, 2010

Now that German TV has just beatifiedPope Pius XII, Rolf Hochmuth tells die Welt where he got the idea for his play "The Deputy". The FR celebrates Elfriede Jelinek's "brilliantly malicious" farce about the collapse of the Cologne City Archive. "Carlos" director Olivier Assayas makes it clear that the revolutionary subject is a figment of the imagination. The SZ returns from the Shanghai Expo with a cloying after-taste of sweet 'n' sour. And historian Wang Hui tells the NZZ that China's intellectuals have plenty of freedom to pose critical questions.read more

Saturday 23 - Friday 29 October, 2010

Author Doron Rabinovici protests against the concessions of moderate Austrian politicians to the FPÖ: recently in Vienna, children were sent back to Kosovo at gunpoint. Ian McEwan wonders why major German novelists didn't mention the Wall. The NZZ looks through the Priz Goncourt shortlist and finds plenty of writers with more bite than Houellebecq. The FAZ outs two of Germany's leading journalists who fiercely guarded the German Foreign Ministry's Nazi past. Jens-Martin Eriksen and Frederik Stjernfelt analyse the symptoms of culturalism, left and right. Hans Ulrich Gumbrecht demonstratively yawns at German debate.read more

Saturday 16 - Friday 22 October, 2010

A new book chronicles the revolt of revolting "third persons" at Suhrkamp publishers in the wild days of 1968. Necla Kelek is appalled by the speech of the very Christian Christian Wulff, the German president, in Turkey. The taz met a new faction of hardcore Palestinians who are fighting for separate sex hairdressing in Gaza. Sinologist Andreas Schlieker reports on the new Chinese willingness to restructure the heart. And the Cologne band Erdmöbel celebrate the famous halo around the frying pan.read more

Saturday 9 - Friday 15 October, 2010

The FR laps up the muscular male bodies and bellies at the Michelangelo exhibition in the Viennese Albertina. The same paper is outraged by the cowardice of the Berlin exhibition "Hitler and the Germans". Mario Vargas-Llosa remembers a bad line from Sweden. Theologist Friedrich Wilhelm Graf makes it very clear that Western values are not Judaeo-Christian values. The Achse des Guten is annoyed by the attempts of the mainstream media to dismiss Mario Vargas-Llosa. The NZZ celebrates the tireless self-demolition of Polish writer and satirist Slawomir Mrozek.read more

Saturday 2 - Friday 8 October, 2010

Nigerian writer Niyi Osundare explains why his country has become uninhabitable. German Book Prize winner Melinda Nadj Abonji says Switzerland only pretends to be liberal. German author Monika Maron is not surethat Islam really does belong to Germany. Russian writer Oleg Yuriev explains the disastrous effects of postmodernism on the Petersburg Hermitage. Argentinian author Martin Caparros describes how the Kirchners have co-opted the country's revolutionary history. And publisher Damian Tabarovsky explains why 2001 was such an explosively creative year for Argentina.read more

Saturday 25 September - Friday 1 October

Three East German theatre directors talk about the trauma of reunification. In the FAZ, Thilo Sarrazin denies accusations that his book propagates eugenics: "I am interested in the interplay of nature and nurture." Polemics are being drowned out by blaring lullabies, author Thea Dorn despairs. Author Iris Radisch is dismayed by the state of the German novel - too much idle chatter, not enough literary clout. Der Spiegel posts its interview with the German WikiLeaks spokesman, Daniel Schmitt. And Vaclav Havel's appeal to award the Nobel prize to Liu Xiabobo has the Chinese authorities pulling out their hair.read more

Saturday 18 - Friday 24 September, 2010

Herta Müller's response to the news that poet Oskar Pastior was a Securitate informant was one of overwhelming grief: "When he returned home from the gulag he was everybody's game." Theatre director Luk Perceval talks about the veiled depression in his theatre. Cartoonist Molly Norris has disappeared after receiving death threats for her "Everybody Draw Mohammed" campaign. The Berliner Zeitung approves of the mellowing in Pierre Boulez' music. And Chinese writer Liao Yiwu, allowed to leave China for the first time, explains why schnapps is his most important writing tool.read more

Saturday 10 - Friday 17 September, 2010

The poet Oskar Pastior was a Securitate informant, the historian Stefan Sienerth has discovered. Biologist Veronika Lipphardt dismisses Thilo Sarrazin'sincendiary intelligence theories as a load of codswallop. A number of prominent Muslim intellectuals in Germany have written an open letter to President Christian Wulff, calling for him to "make a stand for a democratic culture based on mutual respect." And a Shell study has revealed that Germany's youth aspire to be just like their parents.read more

Saturday 4 - Friday 10 September, 2010

Thilo Sarrazin has buckled under the stress of the past two weeks and resigned from the board of the Central Bank. His book, "Germany is abolishing itself", however, continues to keep Germany locked in a debate about education and immigration and intelligence. Also this week, Mohammed cartoonist Kurt Westergaard has been awarded the M100 prize for defending freedom of opinion. Chancellor Angela Merkel gave a speech at the award ceremony: "The secret of freedom is courage". The FAZ interviewed Westergaard, who expressed his disappointment that the only people who had shown him no support were those of his own class. read more